Start-Up Creation

The Smart Eco-efficient Built Environment

F. Pacheco-Torgal, Erik Stavnsager Rasmussen, Claes G. Granqvist, Volodymyr Ivanov, Arturas Kaklauskas, Stephen Makonin, Fernando Pacheco-Torgal, Habil Arturas Kaklauskas

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780128199473
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Civil Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Start-up creation is the most distinctive feature of the entrepreneurial knowledge-based economy. It is also essential for economic growth and especially important in the current context of young graduate's high unemployment rates that are expected to increase in the next few decades. There are other books on the creation of start-up companies, designed to be of value to academics wishing to exploit the commercial value of a new technology or business solution, but none of these existing titles focus on start-up creation in the construction industry. In the second edition of this extremely successful title the editors present a state-of-the-art review on advanced technologies, and their application in several areas of the built environment covering energy efficiency, structural performance, air and water quality to inspire the creation of start-up companies from university research. Part One begins with the key factors behind successful start-up companies from university research, including the development of a business plan, start-up financing, and the importance of intellectual property. Part Two focuses on the use of Big Data, Intelligent decision support systems, the Internet of Things and their use in the energy efficiency of the built environment. Finally, Part three is an entire new section that focuses on several smartphone applications for the smart built environment. While in the first edition the section concerning apps for smart buildings had just two chapters, one for app programming basics and a second a case study on building security in this second edition the core of the book is about app development that constitutes 50% of the book.- Entire new section that was not available in the first edition on smart-phone applications and virtual assistance for infrastructure monitoring- Chapters on business plans, start-up financing and intellectual property have been brought fully up to date as well as algorithms, big data and the Internet of Things for eco-efficient smart buildings- Comprehensive guide to start-ups that arise from college and university research and how the application of advanced technology can be applied to the built environment

1

Introduction to start-up creation for the smart ecoefficient built environment

F. Pacheco-Torgal ^{1 , 2 1} C-TAC Research Centre, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal ² SHRC, University of Sungkyunkwan, Suwon, Republic of Korea

Abstract

This chapter starts by briefly reviewing worrying evidence concerning Earth's environment. The importance of entrepreneurship is highlighted as a way not only to mobilize the energy of young people in developed countries for a sustainability-based new economy and also to tackle the despair of young people in poor countries, which could end in terrorist actions. Dynamics of start-up creation are briefly reviewed. The stigma on start-up failure is also briefly addressed. The importance of start-up creation for the smart ecoefficient built environment is highlighted. An outline of the book is included.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship; Smart Built Environment; Start-ups; Sustainability; Sustainable Development Goals

1.1. Sustainability challenges and entrepreneurship for a better world

About 15 years ago, Meadows et al. (2004) conducted a 30-year update of a well-known crucial study “The limits to growth” (Meadows et al., 1972), having concluded that period was nothing than a waste of time and that humanity has done very little to avoid the collapse of the Planet's environment. In 2008, Turner has also studied Meadows projection's with 30 years of real events, having concluded that the global system is on an unsustainable trajectory unless there is substantial and rapid reduction in consumptive behavior. One year later, Rockström et al. (2009) suggested an innovative approach for global sustainability defining nine interdependent planetary boundaries. They also state that humanity has already transgressed three planetary boundaries for changes to the global nitrogen cycle, rate of biodiversity loss, and above all climate change. Five years later years, Motesharrei et al. (2014) reported on a NASA-funded study that used a mathematical model to show that the overexploitation of natural resources, along with wealth inequality, can precipitate the collapse of civilizations. Khan (2015) explained in very simple words the root of problem: “earthly garbage dump is not free, but the atmospheric dump is treated free! This is because it’s a global commons. So, free-riding remains the norm because of the power of major emitters.” Also in 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, at the heart of which were 17 Sustainable Development Goals that are based on five pillars: people, prosperity, peace, partnership, and planet (UN, 2015). Three years later, Randers et al. (2018) state that the world will not reach all Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, nor even by 2050. Stoknes and Rockström (2018) also showed a pessimistic view saying that the status quo low ambitious approach is not compatible with the ecologic limits of the Planet. Bendell (2019) recently warned about the probable social collapse: “it is now too late to stop a future collapse of our societies because of climate change, and that we must now explore ways in which to reduce harm”. The problem is that message cannot get trough to common people the same repeated warmings by scientists also had no consequences (Kendall, 2000; Ripple et al., 2017; Cavicchioli et al., 2019). And probably that is why the most recent by dozens of scientists (House, 2019) also decided to endorse the movement Extinction Rebellion. Some optimistics like Hickel et al. (2019) argue that it is still at least theoretically possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries in poor nations by building on existing exemplary models and by adopting fairer distributive policies. However, the additional biophysical pressure that this entails at a global level requires that rich nations dramatically reduce their biophysical footprints by 40%–50%. Something that for sure will not happen, because, as the physicist Desvaux (2007) has written one decade ago, “Humans will not willingly sacrifice much of their comfortable lifestyles for the greater good (especially for people in other countries) unless it is taken from them.” On September 25, 2019, the IPCC released a worrying report warning about a faster sea level rising (CBS, 2019). However, the article of CBS fails to mention that there was an optimistic report like all the other previous IPCC reports. Ian Dunlop and David Spratt have found that IPCC reports tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of ‘least drama’ and downplaying the more extreme and more damaging outcomes (Spratt and Dunlop, 2018). It is rather obvious that IPCC are facing pressure from Governments to avoid releasing projections that may induce panic because panic is bad for business, and to economic growth meaning that it is bad for Governments to get reelected. But since the duty of academia is to the truth (Allot et al., 2019) not to any political agenda it's understandable why a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford wrote in a paper published in August of 2019 the following: “Let's get this on the table right away, without mincing words. With regard to the climate crisis, yes, it's time to panic” (Pierrehumbert, 2019). No wonder youth movements started to show signs of rebellion against its stolen future (Hope, 2019; Bandura and Cherry, 2019; Hagedorn et al., 2019). Craig and Ruhl (2019) even mentioned that children plaintiffs are arguing to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the federal government of the United States owes them, constitutionally, a stable climate, which shows that young generations are seeing their future going down the drain. And on September 20, 2019, millions of young people (and others not so young) have taken to the streets (WP, 2019). Still even if we assume that panic is bad for business, the truth is that business still plays an important part in the process because entrepreneurship for climate change could mobilize a lot of energy of young people in developed countries, which is essential in the context of young graduate's high unemployment rates that are expected to increase in the next decades due to robotization and artificial intelligence. Some projections suggest the number of students enrolled in higher education is forecast to rise from 99.4 million in 2000 to 414.2 million in 2030, an increase of 416% (UNESCO, 2015). Also entrepreneurship for climate change will especially be important for young people in poor countries. Not only because “decent work” is mentioned in the 80 SDG but also because in 2014 when Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen were, respectively, the Chairman of Google and the Director of Google Ideas, they wrote a book entitled “The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives.” On it, they recalled the fact that the world has hundreds of millions of young people living in miserable conditions that can easily be radicalized to engage in terrorism. In the book, they recall the words of General Stanley McChrystal to the German magazine Der Spiegel when he said that what will defeat terrorism is not military actions but basically two things: the Rule of Law and basic living conditions like education and jobs. Sand (2019) wrote about those “not having a future” because the future is designed by elitist visionaries in rich countries: “a tantalizing confrontation between different visions of the future and subsequently a challenge for policy-making, when pursuing a common future: On the one hand, there is the far-fetched, high-technological vision of space colonization. On the other hand, there is the what seems in contrast to be the somewhat “profane” desire for more job opportunities.” And this constitutes not only an inequality problem but also an ethical one that may increase despair in poor countries. Also a very recent paper by Krieger and Meierrieks (2019) who studied the effect of income inequality on terrorism for a sample of 113 countries showed that it is very important to follow the aforementioned General's McChrystal advice in order to tackle terrorism. On September of 2019, several drones attacked the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia, the most important oil-processing facility in the world worsening an already unstable world economy (FT, 2019), which shows the consequences of a high entangled world economy addicted to nonrenewable resources located in one of the most unstable regions in the world are especially severe for poor people. Therefore, in this context, entrepreneurship will be very important in order to mobilize the energy of young people in developed countries for a sustainability-based new economy and also to tackle the despair of young people in poor countries, which could end in terrorist actions.

1.2. Start-ups: creation dynamics and failure stigma

According to Lundvall (2017), countries and organizations promoting “experience-based” knowledge and combining it with science-based knowledge are more innovative than those that only give attention to codified knowledge, meaning that scientific production alone is not enough to unleash the innovation potential and that promoting entrepreneurship and small firms would play a critical role for economic prosperity. Also in the current context of high graduated unemployment rates that will be more ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Related titles
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Woodhead Publishing Series in Civil and Structural Engineering
• Foreword
• 1. Introduction to start-up creation for the smart ecoefficient built environment
• Part One. Business plans, startup financing, and intellectual property
• Part Two. Carbon dioxide sequestration materials and technologies
• Part Three. Algorithms, big data and iot for eco-efficient and smart buildings
• Part Four. Smartphone applications for infrastructure monitoring
• Index